When Truth Trumps Love

He was big, he was menacing, and he was a Republican! It happened this way:

Toward the end of my freshman year in college, I was invited to speak to our little Unitarian Fellowship.

Made up mostly of professors and scientists, it was a convivial if somewhat stiff bunch. They seemed to be pleased that an actual college student kept coming to their services Sunday after Sunday, and so they were so kind as to invite me to tell them about the two groups I was involved with—involved with considerably more than I was with less significant things such as…going to class.

And so I spoke that Sunday morning about my involvement in the civil rights movement and the peace movement—about the sit-ins I had survived in that segregated city,

About the ban-the-bomb marches I was helping to organize.

After the service, I was surrounded by well-wishers. It seemed that everyone in the congregation was enthusiastic about what I was doing. I had said things from the pulpit with which they already agreed, and I had renewed their faith in the younger generation.

After the talk, they all thanked me profusely, and filed out toward coffee hour.

All except…one. Standing in the rear of the room, hanging back until others had left, I recognized—the chairman of the state Republican Party.

Finally, he started walking briskly toward me. He was a large man with broad shoulders, a formidable retired military officer. I feared the worst.

As he approached, he reached into his pocket. Perhaps, I thought, he is going for a weapon. I wondered what kinds of weapons Republicans carried.

What he took from his pocket was, in fact, his wallet. From it, he extracted a considerable amount of cash.
“Here,” he said, “I want you to divide this between the groups you were talking about—the civil rights group and the peace group. As a Unitarian, I’m proud of what you’re doing.”

And with that, Colonel Parker gave me a pat on the back, and walked away.

It was a very good lesson. One I have been chewing on for many years.

I think the lesson was NOT that Republicans can harbor liberal sentiments. Rather, it was — to stop putting people in boxes, walling them off, stereotyping them, and regarding them, because of their politics or anything else, as persons with whom I could not share my religious life, and my church community.

It was, and continues to be, a lesson in humility.

I hear that some of you might have learned a similar lesson here from the late Helen Ikeler, a much revered and not at all timid woman, who laid in wait each Sunday morning for Dick Gilbert, to correct him on the errors of his preaching.

When this staunch Republican died, she left a substantial bequest to the church, which I understand is used to beautify the grounds—for landscaping and the care of the trees.

And so, each time you admire one of the great maples or walnuts or oaks that surround us, perhaps you can think about their conservative benefactor, and maybe even about today’s message.

Fact is, in most of our churches, we do not have very many Colonel Parkers or Helen Ikelers. I wish we did, but we don’t.

Yet, I suspect that there is a little of them in many of you.

You work hard all week doing justice and loving-kindness. You do your best. You care, you keep informed. You vote. You write checks to good causes. You attempt to bring your children up the right way; to care for aging parents; to keep up with child support payments; to make your workplace a little more humane, to serve well the people you encounter in personal and professional life.

And then you arrive at church on Sunday morning — to learn about all the things you have not done; all the causes you have not championed; all of the suffering in the world you have not managed to alleviate.

It can be especially intense in time of war, or when a church faces a major social issue. It is at such times, especially, that truth trumps love…an expression I first heard applied to what happened in our liberal churches during the Vietnam War.

Opponents of the war shouted down those who defended the government—shouted across the pews and over the coffee urns. And those who supported the war shouted back.

Suddenly, what was important was not who someone was, how many years of service they had given to the church, how very human they were. How they had given you a ride to church, taught your children in Sunday School, brought you a casserole when you were laid up.

Suddenly, what was important, the only thing that was important, was whether or not you were against the war.
Forget love; only truth counted, and only YOUR side knew the truth. Truth trumped love. Another way to put it: Self-righteousness became a stronger value than civility, compassion or tolerance.

Let us consider then, the lives of some of those I have known who have come up on the short end of that equation.

Kim works in an animal shelter six days a week. She saves dogs and cats from death and disease. Places them in good homes. Helps spread the word about the humane treatment of animals.

When Kim comes to church on Sunday morning, no one seems interested in her work for justice to animals. She gets no credit there. Instead, she learns about all she is not doing to save endangered humans. And she feels guilty, and carries her burden of guilt into a new week.

Daniel is a teacher in an inner city school. At the end of a week, he is limp from giving all he can give, intense hour after intense hour, helping children to survive, and sometimes to thrive.

When Daniel comes to church on Sunday morning, he is asked to volunteer to tutor children in an inner city school. He politely declines, but worries that he has let someone down. He thinks it’s a great program, and wants to see it supported, but not by him! He hopes something in the worship service will somehow help him feel better about the whole thing.

Sarah is a recent high school graduate trying to get a career started, or to get back to school. Last year she had an abortion. Looking back, Sarah thinks she made the right choice, yet she is troubled. She wishes she had someone to talk with about the abortion—before and after. Yet she feels that anyone who expresses doubts or reservations about abortions in her church will be shunned. Sarah wishes she had someone to talk to.

Chet was a lieutenant in the United States Army, sent to Bosnia to stop genocide and mass rape.
He was shot at and spat on, but somehow, he kept his cool.

Back home, he started a small telemarketing company — employing a dozen people who would otherwise be out of work, and selling only products he really believes in. Chet is proud of his military service, and proud of his country. He thinks President Bush just might be right about taking out a mass murderer like Saddam—but he’s not sure.

Chet wishes he could have a civil conversation about it — but he knows that at his Unitarian church — he really can’t feel safe discussing politics, his military service, or his occupation.

Mostly now, Chet and his family come only on Christmas Eve.

Evelyn is a graduate of one of the Seven Sisters, a professional woman very much in love with her husband. And then, suddenly, he dies, and she is devastated. One day, when she is sitting in her garden crying, Jesus appears to Evelyn, and assures her that he will be with her always, will see her through this crisis.

Evelyn is given strength for a new life, but feels she cannot share the experience with anyone, especially not anyone in her church.

Bruce is a corporate lawyer. He takes pride in doing his work ethically and well. Yet, he feels that there is a dimension missing in his life — a spiritual dimension. His church provides him with ethical guidance, and an opportunity to work for justice in the community, but where should he turn if he wants spiritual nurture?

He has asked the question of friends at church, but seems to always be told, one way or another, that spirituality is the same thing as superstition, and, well, we’re certainly not superstitious here.

Beth was raised a Roman Catholic. She does not agree with Catholic teaching about the role of women, a disagreement that brought her to Unitarianism.

But Beth still loves to go to Saturday evening mass with her mother and brother and sister. She associates her Catholicism with her family and her heritage. Her Unitarianism she associates with her independence and individuality.

When she hears anti-Catholic comments on Sunday morning — on many Sunday mornings — it hurts. She never hears anti-Buddhist comments, or put-downs of Muslims, or anti-Hindu barbs, or anti-Semitic jokes. But Catholics and other Christians seem to be fair game.

Beth is thinking that she may need to go back completely to the church of her upbringing. She will miss her Unitarian friends.

Roger has worked for racial equality since the days when he marched with Martin Luther King. He has been beaten up by segregationists, helped pass a fair housing ordinance, supports the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Too modest to talk much about any of this, Roger — who has been fearless on the picket line — is afraid to speak his mind about the anti-racism work of his church. He finds it well intentioned, but disagrees about an approach that he thinks relies too much on promoting white guilt. Despite all his years of sharing the struggle, Roger fears that, if he tells the truth at church, he will be called a bigot and a racist.

The truth of the well-meaning true believers will trump any love that has grown or could grow there.

Colleen is a young mother who has helped her partner and children get over their resentment of the time she spends each morning by herself—a cup of steaming green tea, her journal, a candle lighted, a book of poetry open beside her, gazing out the window at the soft fluttering around the bird feeder she carefully tends.
This is her time, and she guards it against all comers. Carving out that time began as an exercise in love squashed by truth. Her children and partner ridiculed her mercilessly, said she was being selfish and silly.
But Colleen has read Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Journey” the one that goes:
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house began to tremble…But you didn’t stop
You knew what you had to do…
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life that you could save.

Colleen has taken Mary Oliver’s advice to heart. She is saving her own life with a personal spiritual practice.
Made stronger by that, she is now determined to help others to save their own lives…to take her discipline to her church. To be just as determined there as she has been at home — to persist in wanting worship on Sunday morning—worship that will give her joy and rest, refuge and renewal.

And Colleen wants her church to recognize that good parenting is work for justice, that living in a committed lesbian relationship is, in its own way, work for justice.

Colleen wants her church to recognize that her hunger for God is real, that her spiritual discipline is vital, and that, if those things are fed and honored on Sunday morning, she might, she just might, have the strength and motivation to make it to that big demonstration on Monday.

If you happen to run in to Colleen at coffee hour, I do hope you’ll listen to all she has to say. I know you will.
I know you will want to listen — to Colleen and Roger, to Beth and Evelyn, to Sarah and to Chet. To all your sisters and brothers in faith, to all those who come in all shapes and sizes and political and theological persuasions, I know you will want to listen.

So may it be, then, that henceforth in this church and in our lives, our acceptance will trump our exclusivity, our open minds will triumph over narrow reason, and our love will trump our truth.